Stefan Wolfe wrote:
"J.B. Wood" wrote in message
...
Roy Lewallen wrote:
Guess it's time to re-post a posting I made on this newsgroup on April 9.
Here it is:

-----------------------------

I'd vowed that I wouldn't hit this tarbaby yet again. But here I go.

Among the junk science being bandied about here is the following
supposition:
snip
Hello, Roy, and all. No disrespect intended to my fellow hams but some
posts on this ng begin with something about antennas or related devices
and stray off to neverland. I think we should be discussing classic and
novel antenna designs appropos to ham radio (especially ones that don't
require violating electromagnetic theory to operate ;-). To those that
want to discuss the theoretical aspects of electromagnetics there are
appropriate usenet venues (e.g. sci.physics.electromagnetics) for that
purpose.

There seem to be a few folks out there these days that think some unknown
principle(s) in electromagnetics has gone undiscovered (think CFA).
Electromagnetics is a mature science (theory is well characterized
mathematically and validated through experiment.) It is up to those making
these "new" claims to provide the experimental evidence (especially if the
applied mathematics appear to be violated). My .02 worth. Sincerely, and
73s from N4GGO,

Aha. Maybe you can answer this question: Do you agree that a series of
ground radials for a vertical antenna is a true "ground" in the sense that a
1/4 wave antenna radiator is "grounded"? Or do you believe that the only
true ground for a 1/4 wave antenna radiator is true earth ground (or as
close to that as you can get).

I vote that the radial system is nothing more than a tuned counterpoise.
Only a true earth ground produces the mathematical "image" from the other
"half" of the 1/4 wave antenna for any frequency. The radial system actually
radiates as an antenna element and that gives the perception that the radial
system is acting as true "ground" (but only at a specific frequency).

This should be a simple, classic antenna question of the type you suggest
for this ng, e.g. settled science, yet no one seems to have a definitive
answer.



And why should anyone give a tinker's damn whether a ground is true or
false if the result is the same? Making artificial distinctions is a
waste of time.
73,
Tom Donaly, KA6RUH